Monday, November 30, 2015

Over 100 people showed up on Tuesday, December 8 at the
Bernhard Center to talk about about the recent terrorist shootings in Paris and
the American response.

Dr. Laura Hastings and Dr. John Clark from the Department
of Political Science participated including as well as Susan Reed, managing attorney with the Michigan
Immigrant Rights Center in Kalamazoo.

Why Paris?

“It was a great media opportunity,” said Hastings
regarding the terrorists’ motive in the attack. “The terrorists meant to create
a reaction, and they did.”

Paris is a global center like New York, so the drama of
an important place got the world’s attention the terrorists wanted. Baghdad and
Beirut were attacked on the same day with little mention or discussion in the
media, she said.

Hastings had other reasons to explain why she thought
Paris was the target.

France is uncomfortable with its own diversity, even
though it is the nexus of Arab and French culture.

“There is no Arab-French identity like the Arab-American
identity in the United States,” she said.

Neither does France have an official record of its Arab
population because ethnic statistics are forbidden by law, although some estimates
number about 5 million. Most Arabs who live in France settled during the
economic boom years of the 1960s and early 1970s. Many of these immigrants
brought their families after 1973 and settled mainly in the industrial regions
in France, especially the Paris region.

French embracement of the Arab community is sorely
lacking beginning in its colonial era of 130 years ago. Algeria, for example,
was incorporated into French territory, with the condition that natives
renounce their citizen status as Algerians.

“Colonial relations still exist today,” said Hastings.
“Second and third generation Muslims live in poor areas in the outskirts of
Paris that resemble a kind of colonial shanty town where they remain unemployed
and open to radicalization.”

Finally, Islam has not been recognized as a French
religion in this primarily Catholic country, even though Judaism is, she said.
In 1905 “secularism” or the separation of Church and state, was adopted by the
parliament. Today, that policy forbids “ostentatious signs of religion” and
violators can be arrested for wearing hijab (a head covering worn by Muslim
women) or the Jewish kippah or skullcap.

“With this background of history, it is difficult for
French Muslims to feel French,” said Hastings. “Meanwhile, the French government (and the US
government as well) should address these underlying social issues with its
Muslim citizens instead of reacting to the terrorism by bombing ISIS targets.

The American
response

To illustrate the American response to the Paris attacks,
John Clark drew the distinction between a policy
response and a political response.

A policy response occurs when some action takes place in
government, like the passing of a law. For example, after the church shooting
in Charleston on June 17, 2015, the South Carolina state legislature voted to
remove the Confederate battle flag from its capitol building.

In contrast, a political response is all about who gets
what, when, why and how. It is typically used pejoratively, but in truth, it’s
not a bad thing. Clark cited the examples of the Columbine High School shooting
on April 20, 1999, and the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona on January 8, 2011,
when U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot in the head.

“After Columbine, local school districts were encouraged
to think about their response strategies in case of another shooting, but no
policy was made,” said Clark.

“After Tucson, we saw Democrats and Republicans engage in
‘date night’ at the State of the Union address where they sat together and
showed they could reach across the aisle. Immediately after the speech,
however, such cooperation was over.”

The response from government so far has been a political response about how to gain advantage
from the Paris attacks even though there have been a number of opportunities to
make a policy response, he said.

“But they haven’t done it—and probably won’t—even after
the San Bernadino attacks.”

What politicians did
latch on to was a political response to refugees, said Clark. The House passed
a bill to halt the admission of Syrian refugees into the U.S. until they
undergo a more stringent vetting process. Governors in 31 states refused to
admit refugees even though that issue is not under state jurisdiction. Some Republican
presidential candidates tried to advance their candidacy by calling for more
refugee policy reform.

“It was not a well-thought-out response,” said Clark who
added that American politicians often advance certain issues to make it look as
though they are solving problems—especially if American citizens are ignorant
of the issue as in the case of refugee policy.

Meanwhile, faith-based groups all across the religious
spectrum spoke out on behalf of refugees because their faith leads them to
policy that is different from political rhetoric.

“Catholics, evangelicals and Jews are all agreeing on
refugee resettlement,” said Clark.

Refugee
resettlement

Susan Reed spoke on the issue of refugee resettlement
from a legal perspective.

The
definition of a refugee is a matter of international law, which resulted from
the horror of not protecting Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler’s genocide during
World War II, she said. In the United States, refugee status was not codified
until 1980.

In order to be identified as refugees
or asylees, they must prove they are unable to return to their country because
of a well-founded fear of persecution based on one of five protected categories
including race, religion, national origin, political opinion and membership in
a particular social group. The last basis is constantly evolving, however. For
example, in 1994, a case was decided where gays and lesbians would be considered
in some countries part of a particular social group with a well-founded fear of
persecutio. Then, because of the civil war in Syria, many Syrians also meet
the legal definition of refugees for a variety of the possible reasons.

"Asylum seekers get into this
country by showing up at our front door—a port of entry,” said Reed. “Although
this is not illegal, they will be detained. They then must prove that they meet
the legal definition of a refugee in a complex legal process.”

Those who are actually admitted to the U.S. as refugees go
through a more complicated process abroad, but they have a clear legal immigration
status and a path to U.S. citizenship. First, they must be identified outside
the United States and brought in from a refugee camp or another location abroad
by the U.S. working in partnership with another international partner such as
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Potential refugees then go through a 13-step process,
the highest level of security of any group seeking entry into the U.S. that
involves referral, clearance, in-person interviews with the refugees and others
connected to them, medical screening and matching families with agencies. For
this last part, various non-profit agencies engage in a bidding process to
handle the refugees’ cases. This involves cultural orientation, security
clearances and placement for housing, education, medical care and the like.

Reed gave a more
in-depth explanation of refugee policy and Governor Snyder’s role in tripping
off other governors’ rush to restrict Syrian and Iraqi resettlement. To get the
details on this issue, view her blog.

The afternoon
event was sponsored by the Diether H. Haenicke Institute for Global Education
as part of its Occasional
Lecture Series on pressing current events.

Past
talks included Ukraine and Russia: A Panel Discussion on the Growing Conflict (March 13, 2014) Ebola: A Panel Discussion on the
Current Outbreak in West Africa (Oct 2, 2014).